


Worth A Thousand Words

by Blissfully_Different



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexual Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Post Reichenbach AU, Relationship Negotiation, Sharing a Bed, Two Shot, different kinds of love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:25:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1578413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blissfully_Different/pseuds/Blissfully_Different
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Papered from floor to ceiling, with hardly a spot of paint showing through, the wall was littered with them.  Pictures. Some in colour, some photocopies, a few simple charcoal drawings, graphite sketches, some sloppy, some exceptionally meticulous. Details of John’s face that even he didn’t have a complete grasp of. There was sheet music as well, some sections crossed through, others with small notes in the margins ('his favourite melody'... 'only play during nightmares'), one without any words but one. John. Some of the photos were grainy, taken from CCTV cameras, others clearly from a distance but with startling clarity, captured by what must have been a high-powered lens.</p><p>"I thought of you... often, John."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was after 48 of the longest hours of John Watson’s life that he came to find himself slumped against Greg Lestrade’s desk, unaware and indifferent to the edge carving an imprint into his forehead. “Come on,” Sherlock’s voice carried over him. As he staggered to his feet, the full weight of everything that had transpired seemed to break over his head, leaving him in a fit of hysterical giggles that seemed to persist as his formerly dead best friend carted him out of Scotland Yard. 

John immediately held his hand out to catch a cab but Sherlock tugged down his arm. “My place is only a few blocks from here,” he explained, and John turned to follow him instinctively, knowing that if he lost his inertia, he’d need to be physically hauled out of the back of the taxi. 

Later, John wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone how he’d ended up in the back kitchen of a take away curry shop, slipping through a carefully disguised door. His eyes watered at the overwhelming scent of cumin and turmeric that followed him up the never-ending staircase. “Nice place,” he rasped, eyeing the peeling, faded wallpaper. 

He doubled over as they made it to the top of the steps, exhausted and numb. John couldn’t say just how it was that he was still supporting himself, having taken a bit of copper piping directly to his kneecap, and the numbing exhaustion that accompanied his adventures with Sherlock Holmes had never been more welcome.

“Had to keep a low profile,” Sherlock explained and John noticed a twinge of hesitance in his bruised and gaunt features. “It’s, erm… if you’ll wait for a moment I can straighten –“

“Sod that,” John replied automatically, brushing past Sherlock and snatching the keys hanging from his fingers to let himself in unapologetically. 

“John, it’s…” Sherlock began in a strained voice. John simply ignored him, glancing around as he removed his jacket, squinting in the dim lighting. It was a hole, there was no denying that, but it wasn’t as though his friend had been living in squalor. The twin bed almost looked neat and despite the papers littering every surface and the thin layer of dust, it was far better than John knew it could have been.

“You can take the bed; I’ll kip in the chair,” Sherlock told him with a tired wave of his hand as they both began to undress. 

“’s fine,” John told him, too tired to argue over it. “You’re a twig. We’ll fit just fine.” John silently lamented all of the weight that Sherlock had lost over the past year and a half; all of the progress and tireless effort he’d put into getting him to a healthy weight with Mrs Hudson’s help. He’d gained nearly two stone in his time at 221B, and lost at least three, John could see once the coat and jacket had been removed.

It was as he was undoing his belt that he finally caught sight of the wall besides the doorframe. “John, wait,” he heard as Sherlock attempted to shield his view with his body. His eyes flashed from the wall to Sherlock’s face, his expression seeming as though his face had gotten stuck midway into a wince. 

Papered from floor to ceiling, with hardly a spot of paint showing through, the wall was littered with them. Pictures. Some in colour, some photocopies, a few simple charcoal drawings, graphite sketches, some sloppy, some exceptionally meticulous. Details of John’s face that even he didn’t have a complete grasp of. There was sheet music as well, some sections crossed through, others with small notes in the margins ('his favourite melody'... 'only play during nightmares'), one without any words but one. John. Some of the photos were grainy, taken from CCTV cameras, others clearly from a distance but with startling clarity, captured by what must have been a high-powered lens. One was cropped in a way that it was obvious that John’s date had been cut out of the image, the only thing remaining was a bit of her elbow. 

John turned in a daze, his lips parted in inquiry as his eyes swam, looking up at Sherlock through the fog of sleep and tears and a swollen left eye. The eyes that usually pierced through him were filled with a faltering vulnerability, his posture slumped in submissive shame. He opened his mouth a few times, looking for a way to rationalise what John was seeing but to no success. Sherlock cleared his throat, moving around the room in a half-arsed attempt at tiding. 

John silently toed off his shoes, not bothering with the rest of his clothes as he sat down on the bed, sliding in and tugging Sherlock down beside him. He buried his arm beneath his friend’s pillow, turning on his side and letting Sherlock settle himself before slotting in against him. They fit like jigsaw pieces, John’s head fitting perfectly into the crook of his neck, his body curling along the longer one. If either of them were uncomfortable, John didn’t have the capacity to notice, his energy sapped from him entirely.

There were things he wanted to say. Words he couldn’t put sense to and sense he couldn’t put words to. Things he’d never find an opportunity to say again in a hundred years, and words he knew he’d never be able to get through without sobbing his eyes out. But because it was them, because after all this time they were still Johnandsherlock, he looked up at the man besides him and knew they were irrelevant. Sherlock could read them from his eyes as easily as words from a page.

“I missed you too,” was all he managed to murmur, before allowing his eyes to close and his life to resume. 

\---

“Shower,” John announced in a flat, hoarse voice as they got back to the flat. They’d gotten only a few hours’ sleep in Sherlock’s flat, called back in by Lestrade for paperwork and then briefed by Mycroft on the situation of Sherlock’s ‘resurrection’ which mainly consisted of him whinging over all the grief this was putting him through. 

Much as Sherlock did want to see Mrs Hudson straight off, John persuaded him to wait for a decent hour and Sherlock was reminded that it was 2 in the morning. He stepped up the final stair and let it all wash over him; wood smoke and bergamot and stale MSG. Scrubbed floors and John’s soap and old books. Mrs Hudson’s lemon scones. 

“You’re home,” John croaked, one hand resting inoffensively on his shoulder. Shutting his eyes and breathing it all in, he nodded, too choked up to speak. He opened his eyes to John’s bloodshot scleras, pupils pin tight peering into his and he nodded, brushing past him to stand in the middle of their sitting room, documenting what John had brought himself to change and what remained the same almost despite himself. Too much. Toomuchtoomuch. 

“I’m just… I’ll…” John nodded, making a wobbly march for the bathroom, his bruised knee nearly giving out on him with each step. Sherlock dropped down onto the sofa, his chair apparently a resting place for the post. He shut his eyes and blinked them open to John standing over him, the tips of his hair standing up darkly and his face more wrinkled than Sherlock could ever remember seeing it. “Bed,” John whispered, squeezing his shoulder.

Sitting up, he wordlessly crossed the room, shutting his bedroom door behind him and undressing robotically. His clothes were as they had been when he’d left, altered in only the most miniscule ways. Either John or Mrs Hudson had been in his shirt drawer; had mused them, as though caressing the clothing just lightly. 

It was as he pulled up his pyjama trousers it suddenly struck him like a bolt of lightning. He was home. It was over. The air seemed changed around him; heavier somehow. Thicker. Surreal. That was the word. It was a familiar sensation, having everything around him feel foreign, like he was looking at it through eyes that weren’t meant to see colours. 

A burst of energy flowed through him and he paced across the room, back and forth in a drunken sway. A second wind. A twenty-second wind. The floor creaked above him as John settled back into bed. John. John was upstairs, in his pyjamas, preparing for sleep. As though a year and a half hadn’t passed. As though it was the night after the culmination of Moriarty's game, and they were tense and enthralled and exhausted after a week long case and nearly being blown to bits. 

As though a year and a half hadn’t passed. 

A year and a half. 

17 months. Nearly as long as their friendship. There were things John didn’t know. There were things that Sherlock wanted to forget. Faces that would haunt him until the day he died. 

And suddenly he was flying up the steps, throwing John’s door open and leaning over him, his pupils blown and expression mad.

“There are people who are not alive today because of my actions,” he declared when he could get his breath. “Good people who did bad things because they were coerced. People who didn’t know what they were doing, or why. Men who I didn’t have a grudge against, but that would have killed me first if they could, John. I killed him. I shot him in the head with my revolver. You didn’t know it was gone. How did you not know?” 

He slumped to his knees on the mattress, balancing on the very edge of the bed, his hands reaching out and clutching John’s arm for purchase. “I’m alive, but I don’t feel it,” he gasped, slumping over into John’s lap. 

He shut his eyes, listening to the quiet buzz of electricity and John’s uneven breathing and they remained that way for a long while. 

“You need to sleep,” John whispered hoarsely, breaking the silence like a crack, followed by the audible scrapping of his hand over unshaven cheeks. “I need to sleep.”

“I can’t.” 

A raspy, congested sigh and then a silence. “There is nothing that you have done that I won’t forgive you for.” 

Shutting his eyes tightly, he let the world slot itself back into terms he could understand. He nodded, getting to his feet and heading to the bottom of the John’s bed. “I need to sleep here,” he declared, curling himself into a ball beside John’s covered feet. “Forgive me for that.” 

He felt a hand circle his arm and lifted his head to meet John’s eyes. “I don’t need to,” John whispered, tugging him upwards towards him. Crawling the length, he slid his legs beneath the covers, turning so that he was facing John. He shut his eyes and didn’t open them again for quite some time.


	2. Chapter 2

When Sherlock did awaken, his body jerking, it was to a sharp stinging sensation against his right temple. Steady hands grabbed him, holding both wrists tightly, a hand clasping his shoulder. 

“Sh sh sh,” he heard, his eyes focusing as he looked around, the details of the room sliding into place like a filter placed over the lens of a camera with John’s weary face coming into sharp focus. He looked around, noticing John’s med kit open on his nightstand, an empty hypodermic needle beside it. Xylocaine, perhaps. “Needed to stitch it,” he heard John’s hushed voice tell him, the hand on his shoulder reaching up to drag through Sherlock’s unwashed hair in a calming gesture. He looked up at John in alarm and met soothing, affectionate eyes. 

“S-ok,” John told him. His adrenal gland tapered off and he felt the cold weariness that had settled over him sweep back in. He slumped back into the pillow like week old celery and shifted a bit so that John could rest on the bed more comfortably. The light that filtered through the venetian blinds was flecked with lazy dust motes and for once, he couldn’t tell if it was dawn or dusk. 

“Go back to sleep,” John shushed, the numbing agent slowly taking effect. He shut his eyes, falling into a sort of half-sleep as he felt the slow tugging sensation of John stitching his skin back together. He’d waited too long. There would be traces of a scar, though John would do everything in his power to minimize the appearance until it would hardly be noticeable beneath his hair. 

He fell back to sleep, dreaming of the past few days, the urgency, John’s exhausted face telling him it was nearly over again and again until the dreams finally lulled into the boring monotony of the quiet places in the world: John’s body heavily cushioned beside him as he dozed off on the tube, in the back of a cab, on the walk back to his small flat that always reeked of curry. 

He felt something warm caressing his face when he next woke up and found John with a basin of warm soapy water and an array of towels. “Was hoping you’d sleep through this bit,” John hummed, wiping away dirt, soot and blood from his left cheek. 

“Not an invalid,” Sherlock said, but it was so slurred that John wrinkled his nose, the humour lightening his face. 

“Terribly convincing,” he said with a cluck, the warm flannel trailing down to his neck. “Did you bathe at all at all while you were away?” he asked and Sherlock treated that question with all the seriousness it called for.

“Piss off,” he murmured, swiping up to push the flannel away but missing.

“You certainly didn’t sleep, eat, or cut your hair,” John retorted, wiping over his collarbones. This was completely unnecessary, Sherlock thought, though he shut his eyes as the warmth of the room and the flannel began to leach into his bones. 

“’s nice,” he practically gurgled, listening to the water shifting and John wringing out the washcloth. “You’re not doing all of me, are you?” he asked, cracking one glazed over eye open and raised a sarcastic brow. “Haven’t ‘played doctor’ since my third cousin Gertrude undressed me in the woodshed in 1988,” he slurred, too exhausted to laugh.

“Pants stay on, got it,” John said absently, the flannel dragging down his bare arms while Sherlock contemplated how John had managed to get his shirt off. He hadn’t been wearing one, he remembered dully. “This is nurse’s work anyway,” he said, his voice soft and warm. 

Sherlock hummed, shutting his eyes and tilting his head to the side. “Sokay,” he managed to breathe, thinking aloud. “Trustyou.” 

He drifted off to sleep, and woke up wearing pyjamas that were too big and too short for him, the towels and water gone and fresh smelling sheets on the bed. That was how John had done it. Subconsciously, he had learned John’s touch, his gait, his tuneless humming and his nearly forgotten scent and understood that he was no threat; even came to depend upon them as a source of safety. 

“An hour and a half, on the dot,” John whispered beside him as he leaned over to give him a coy grin, a hand swiping over his freshly washed hair, pressing a kiss to his forehead. 

“Florence Nightingale effect is rather common, but probably not a healthy foundation for a relationship,” he sputtered, blushing a bit as John covered his own face with his hand, flopping backwards on his bed, snorting his amusement. 

Sherlock yawned, noting that John was in the familiar track pants and blue and white striped jumper that constituted his sleepwear. Sherlock had slept the entire day and probably could go another 8 hours. Sliding out of bed like a bowl of jelly, he staggered into the bathroom, pissing for a solid minute and a half and brushing his teeth. He looked at his reflection; the stubble on his face both the colour and texture of a peach. It was the most he’d been able to manage after four months without a razor. John hadn’t mentioned it, bless him, but it was humiliating in and of its own right. 

He snatched up the expensive electric razor he’d given John for Christmas three years ago, having a go over with it but growing tired before he could be done with it completely. He cursed his ginger father and slid back into the bedroom, somehow exhausted by his trek into the loo.

“I used your toothbrush,” Sherlock told John unapologetically, sliding over and shutting out the light on John’s side, ignoring the book in his hands. John sucked in an exasperated breath through his nose, taking off the newly acquired reading glasses, not more than 3 months old, and set his copy of Red Dragon aside. He’d read it before, Sherlock knew. 

He was getting too comfortable, he thought, as he pulled John up against him slipping his arm beneath his neck and burying his nose in his scalp, the cheap shampoo he’d often stolen like an old dream he’d once had that never completely left him. 

“Least you smell a bit less ripe,” John’s muffled voice reached him as arms slid around his waist. 

Things would go back to normal tomorrow, and Sherlock would be lying to say he wished they wouldn’t. Perhaps he’d stay up a bit longer, enjoy the almost crushing weight of John half on top of him, grounding him like a paperweight and making him ache for something that, in the here and now, he had in spades. 

“Sherlock?” John voice reached him and he leaned forward so that he could press his forehead up against John’s, their faces close enough that their noses were nearly brushing.  
He hummed, combing through John’s hair, an inch longer than it normally was. He was overdue for a haircut by two weeks, Sherlock thought with a smile. 

“Gonna miss your ginger beard,” John whispered, sliding sideways and pressing up against his cheek to kiss his slightly less stubbly cheeks. 

“Hmm,” Sherlock said, not without affection. “You can visit it in the morning. I left it in the sink.” 

“Tomorrow, you’ll move back in,” John told him, a hand tracing over his chest. Sherlock found himself wishing that John would keep it there. That they could stay in this room which smelt of John’s soap and aftershave and he could press up against him and rest his head in the space between his breastbone and his shoulder and there would be peace in Sherlock’s head at long last. The screeching noises and scent of burning flesh would fade to nothing until all of the bad things he’d seen and done in the past three years were naught but lingering dreams. 

And though he was not a man of sentiment, he told John this, watching as his lips twisted upwards into a smile and his eyes went soft and sad and Sherlock thought it’s the most wonderful and god-awful thing he’d ever seen. Because no one should ever pity Sherlock Holmes. 

John rolled off him then, tugging Sherlock over until he was wedged in that soft, safe spot and John’s been using the detergent they sold in individual packets in the vending machines at the laundrette; the generic ‘linen fresh’ scent masking the smell of ‘John’ and he resents it. He wondered if he could persuade John to take off his shirt or if it would be perceived as a come-on. He inwardly snorted at the prospect, remembering sex like it had occurred three lifetimes ago. John would know better. 

Would John know better?

He wondered if he ought to try to seduce the army doctor. Ply him with ‘mind-blowing’ orgasms and keep him forever for his own, anchored to Sherlock, as co-dependent and love sick as he felt. It would be no hardship. Not like Peter or Mark or just-for-a-change-of-pace-Jenny. Oh what a disgrace that had been.

Yet John would be disappointed when confronted with the realisation that nothing, not his mouth, fingers, cock or arse would be capable of getting Sherlock off. He would feel deprived of the satisfaction of hearing Sherlock call his name wantonly or gush over how hard John had made him come. He wasn’t a woman and no amount of acting would make his dick hard. 

What a fanciful world that would be.

And so he grew tense, his thoughts spiralling into a dark place where he convinced himself this was all a pretence doomed to crash around his ears once John worked out that this wasn’t going to end in a fairy-tale romance; crime-fighters by day, rampant lust driven lovers by night. 

And because there was really no way to stop this progression of events, he rolled over, back onto his side of the bed before John had a chance to question whether why his muscles had gone stiff. 

“What is it?” John asked, a note of hesitation and loss in his voice that Sherlock was certain was going to break him. He wondered if John would ask him to leave, or make him feel so unwelcome he went on his own accord. Swallowing, he took the plunge. 

“I’ll let you fuck me if you want,” he choked, still facing the wrong way. Coward, he hissed at himself and forced himself to turn over though he couldn’t meet John’s eyes. “I could suck you off as well, though I’ve been told that I’m rather crap at it. I’m afraid I’m not quite equipped to fuck you, though I suppose I could buy something if that would be something that you would desire…”

He chanced a look at John’s face and felt his confidence desert him, knocked back by the astonishment and incredulousness on his face, his expression twisted as though he’d just been propositioned by Mrs Hudson. John bit his lip and then covered his face, shaking slightly and trying hard not to show it. It was futile. He laughed like he’d just been told the best joke he’d ever heard. 

“Oh Christ,” John cried, wiping his eyes. “I have missed your peculiar sense of humour.”

He must have realised that Sherlock was not laughing because he turned onto his side, his eyes scanning Sherlock’s expression and growing incredulous once more. “What, seriously?” 

Sherlock wanted to crawl under the bed and never emerge. For a moment, he actually considered doing so, but saw it in his mind and knew how absurd that would look. “I thought you were… that this…” 

“Christ alive,” John bellowed, feigning annoyance. “You!?” he asked, almost offended. “I mean, the press, yeah, Mrs Hudson, all the rest of them, I get that. It’s because we’re… well, we’re soul mates, and I know how shit that sounds and I want to punch myself in the face for even saying that out loud but there’s really no other word for it. I mean, if I saw two blokes looking at each other the way we do I’d think they were fucking as well, but I figured it didn’t matter because at least you knew!” John was almost being loud, sitting up and waving his arms around like he’d gone round the twist. 

John’s mouth went tight and he rolled his eyes skyward, as though reacting to something Sherlock hadn’t said. “And yeah, I’ll concede this is properly queer behaviour, but I’m fairly certain that even my sister, who is quicker than anyone to call something gay would agree that unless I’m actually fucking you up the arse, it isn’t technically gay, is it? Not that I feel the need to rationalise it, and it’s not as though anyone would take my word for it anyway...” He stopped, realising that he was acting like a raving lunatic and looked at Sherlock with a gormless look on his face and suddenly it was Sherlock that was laughing like he was having a conniption fit of epic proportions. 

“Come here,” he said once he managed to regain his sanity, pulling John in and placing a large, almost comical kiss on John’s lips complete with a loud ‘mwah’ sound as he pulled away, grabbing him and wrestling him into his arms and lying back so that Sherlock’s chest was pressed against John’s shoulders. “Glad to have gotten that settled then,” he murmured into John’s ear. 

John snorted, shaking his head and chuckling through his nose and Sherlock could see the fond expression on his face with his eyes shut. “I still love you, of course. But I imagine fucking you would be like shagging a very lifelike sex doll, and I’m really more of a foot fetish sort of fellow,” John informed him.

“Well, you’re more than welcome to suck my toes, though I’m sure you saw the state of them earlier,” Sherlock told him dryly.

“Ergh,” John gurgled, a small shudder running up his spine that caused a deep rumbling laugh to spread through Sherlock’s body. 

“I’m still going to make it hellish for you to date,” Sherlock informed him matter-of-factly, almost cheerily. “And if I see them starting to get their hooks in you, I’ll shut it down so quickly you won’t even know what happened.” 

John sighed the beleaguered sigh of someone who had long since accepted their fate. “I’ll still give you hell for it,” he returned resignedly. 

“You’ll have to shag them at theirs,” Sherlock informed John warmly. “And I’d rather you came home straight away. Also, you’ll shower before you come to bed.” 

John clicked his tongue, scoffing and twisting so that he could stare at Sherlock agape. “Oi, so you’ve decided you’re putting down roots in my bedroom then?” he asked and Sherlock grinned widely. “Do I get a say in this?”

“Reckon it depends on what your say is,” he answered easily.

“Good, then you can move the bloody chemistry set into your bedroom. I’d grown accustom to having a functional kitchen while you were away,” he fussed, as though this is actually a concession. “We’ll see just how keen you are to stay when you wake up to my morning breath in your face and my morning wood on your hip,” John said flippantly. 

“It’ll be your alarm going off at 7AM that will drive me round the twist,” Sherlock informed him without even blinking. “But I’m still staying.” 

John paused a few moments to actually consider this, apparently deciding that he was amenable. “Trial basis only,” he muttered, and Sherlock knew that meant yes. 

Sherlock smiled, moving back so that John could turn over towards him, dropping the false attitude. “Anything else, then? Will you be wanting turn down service and breakfast in bed as well?” 

“No, that’s all,” Sherlock said, settling back in and then frowning. “Oh, but take off your shirt,” he ordered, his nose scrunching. John raised an eyebrow and Sherlock looked at him expectantly. “That detergent is hideous. You smell all off,” he explained carelessly.

“I’ve got a madman in my bed,” John told him, a degree of fondness in his voice that offset the normal level of annoyance. He removed his shirt all the same. 

Sherlock moved in, his head resting on John’s right pectoral, his hand cupping the other, memorising the feeling of scar tissue under his fingers and relishing the way John shuddered at the touch.

“You leave it on,” Sherlock said a few minutes later, sleepily.

“Couldn’t get you to wake up the whole bloody day, and now you won’t shut the fuck up,” John told him, warmth seeping into the false put-upon tone. “It’s half gone two, shut your buggering mouth!” 

“The women you sleep with. You always leave your shirt on,” he continued as though uninterrupted.

“It’s a war wound,” John said with a tightness he tried to hide behind aloofness. “They’d find it tragic. They’ll want the story. Bit of a mood killer, really.”

Sherlock hummed. “When you tell them why you won’t take it off they feel an unconscious draw to you, desperate to prove themselves worthy of seeing it; to impress an intimacy upon the situation.” 

John froze, considering this. “Christ,” he breathed and Sherlock looked up to catch John’s expression. 

“I showed Mary,” John admit in a small voice. “She cried. Told me she still thought I was gorgeous.” 

Sherlock set his jaw, tensing. “Still,” he snapped. “Beautiful despite it,” he added lowly in a half growl. “It’s part of who you are. It’s the most gorgeous thing about you,” Sherlock insisted forcefully.

“Gee, thanks mate,” John tsked. “Here I was thinking I had nice eyes…” 

“It’s what brought you to me,” Sherlock explained softly, shaking his head. “It’s like having my initials tattooed across your chest.”

John ruminated on that for a bit. “Does that mean I get to tattoo mine across yours?” he asked innocently.

“Oh God, yes,” Sherlock answered happily. 

“That was a joke.” 

“Oh,” he replied disappointedly.

“How bout your arse instead?” John laughed, swatting it for good measure.

“Piss off.”


End file.
